In January 2026, amid macroeconomic uncertainty and shrinking market liquidity, the mainstream crypto market experienced a downward trend with declining risk appetite. In such a severe bearish environment, the question of "whether one can still find assets that are rising" became a challenging problem for all trading platforms and investors.
Huobi HTX adheres to a core philosophy of long-termism and professional screening, quickly responding to genuine market demands while executing a stringent asset selection strategy. It filters high-quality projects with real attention, community consensus, and periodic narratives from various sectors including Meme, AI, Privacy, Public Chains, and DeFi. Platform data from January shows that numerous assets still achieved impressive gains despite the sluggish overall market, capturing alpha against the trend.
The "Not Easy" in a Bear Market:"List what's hot," with strictly selected assets outperforming the market average
A market downturn does not mean opportunities disappear; it means the difficulty of screening multiplies. As Justin Sun, Global Advisor to Huobi HTX, stated: "List hot assets, list what's hot." Among the assets listed by Huobi HTX in January, it maintained adherence to long-term sectors while also responding swiftly to genuine market demands when short-term hotspots emerged, providing users with more choices under controllable risks, demonstrating significant wealth effects. Among them, the newly listed project RIVER saw its price rise from a low of 17 USDT to a high of 88.8 USDT since its listing on January 16, with a maximum increase of 422.4%;DUSK rose from 0.0375 USDT to 0.32 USDT, with a monthly surge of 753.3%.
In an environment where the overall market is under pressure, the fact that new coins can achieve multiple-fold growth in a short cycle is itself a rare phenomenon. Behind this is Huobi HTX's continuous tracking and rapid response to market sentiment, capital flows, and narrative rhythms.
Meme Sector: Structural Opportunities in Emotional Games
The Meme sector remained one of the most active directions in the January market. In an environment with limited liquidity, projects with high consensus and topical attributes can still attract concentrated capital for gaming.
PEPE once rose to 0.0000071 USDT, with a monthly increase of 82.1%, becoming one of the representative assets leading the rebound in the Meme sector.BONK (Bonk), the first community-led dog coin on the Solana blockchain, saw a monthly increase of 78.1%, showing that established Meme projects still have the ability to attract capital in a bear market.NEIRO (Neiro) achieved a steady performance with a maximum increase of 66.3% after listing.BROCCOLI (CZ’s Dog),凭借强话题属性与社区关注度 (Relying on strong topical attributes and community attention), saw its price rise from 0.0149 USDT to 0.043 USDT, a surge of 188.6%.
Furthermore, Huobi HTX's early layout in the Chinese Meme direction was particularly notable. Huobi HTX was the first to list "币安人生 (Binance Life)" and "我踏马来了 (I'm F*cking Coming)", with monthly increases of 172.7% and 441.7% respectively, and its listing time was 83 days ahead of Binance.
AI and Cross-Chain: Deterministic Increments Driven by Narratives
The AI and Cross-Chain sectors remain directions with relatively medium to long-term logic in the market.VIRTUAL (Virtuals Protocol) is an "AI Character Economy" ecological protocol that allows developers to create autonomous, interactive, tradable, and evolvable AI Agents. With the explosion of the x402 ecosystem, the community and developer ecosystem continue to expand, making it one of the representative assets in the AI sector, with a monthly increase of 90.3%, showing an independent trend amidst market fluctuations.
RIVER (River) is building a chain-abstract stablecoin system, connecting assets, liquidity, and yields across multiple blockchains. As one of the most outstanding performers in the cross-chain sector, River, with its clear technical positioning and capital backing, quickly gained market attention after listing, achieving a maximum increase of over 422%, becoming one of the most representative Alpha projects in January's "Huobi's Top Picks".
Privacy and DeFi: Undervalued Value Recovery Rallies
The privacy sector maintained热度 (heat) for a relatively long time, showing obvious hotspot rotation from large coins like ZEC and XMR to small-cap ones like DUSK.DUSK (Dusk Network) is a blockchain platform designed for regulation and decentralized finance, serving as Europe's first blockchain-based stock exchange focused on the issuance of digital securities. DUSK's price rose from 0.0375 USDT to 0.32 USDT, a monthly surge of 753.3%, as the long-term narrative of the privacy sector gradually returned to focus.ZKP (zkPass) is an oracle network based on zkTLS, rising 103.7% monthly, showing continuous progress in the zero-knowledge and privacy direction at the infrastructure level.GWEI (ETHGas) is an Ethereum infrastructure protocol focused on reducing transaction latency. As a DeFi-related asset, GWEI rose 157.9% in January, representing a structural opportunity in a niche sector.
A bear market does not mean there are no opportunities; it just means opportunities are scarcer. Huobi HTX will continue to use its professional, prudent, and forward-looking asset screening system to help users capture truly Alpha-quality projects in a complex and changing market environment. In the future, Huobi HTX will also continue to cover more new sectors and narratives, working with users to navigate cycles and welcome the next market recovery.
About Huobi HTX
Huobi HTX was founded in 2013. After 12 years of development, it has evolved from a cryptocurrency exchange into a comprehensive blockchain business ecosystem covering digital asset trading, financial derivatives, research, investment, incubation, and other businesses.
As a leading global Web3 gateway, Huobi HTX adheres to a development strategy of global expansion, ecological prosperity, wealth effect, and security and compliance, providing comprehensive, secure, and reliable value and services to virtual currency enthusiasts worldwide.
To learn more about Huobi HTX, please visithttps://www.htx.com/ orHTX Square, and follow us onX,Telegram, andDiscord. For further inquiries, please contact[email protected].
